Ah, senior year. The time of fun electives, carefree days, and looking forward to what comes after graduation.
In the words of DJT: WRONG. Senior year is a mess. A horrible, scary, stressful mess where you’re not getting enough sleep, schoolwork is spiraling out of control, you’re not eating any vegetables, and you have to find time to think about jobs and grad school in between classes, internships, jobs, and your meager social life.
Not to mention the most daunting task of all… senior thesis. The one paper that will define your college career. The giant research project that you have an entire year (or if you’re in my program, a stress-filled, compacted 15 weeks) to complete.
Some colleges actually don’t require seniors to write a thesis, and I’m kicking myself for not realizing this in 2012 when I was looking at schools. Don’t get me wrong; in the long run, I’ll be glad I have this scholarly and potentially publishable piece under my belt, but for now… I’m in academic hell. Here’s what writing a thesis is like, as told by the lovable FRIENDS:
1. That moment when someone brings up thesis, completely unwarranted, when you were trying to forget about it for a few hours:
2. That feeling when someone asks how writing your third proposal went when it’s due in four hours and you haven’t started:
3. The fact that thinking about thesis never really goes away, even when you’re trying so hard not to care about it for five minutes of your life:
4. When your professor assigns useless busywork when you could be doing something useful, like annotating sources or working on an outline:
5. That feeling when you allowed yourself one (1) night of fun and then realize the next day that you’re completely behind on all your work:
6. When you finally think you have a solid idea, but more research or a conference with your professor ends up scrapping all your progress to that point:
7. When it’s the middle of midterms and you have to put off your thesis work for 2 weeks to study, write papers, and catch up on internship work:
8. When you get back from Thanksgiving and your professor is expecting you to have written half of your thesis draft:
9. When you realize you actually have to take this paper seriously instead of doing it the night before like you’ve done all throughout college:
10. When you’re getting down to the wire and you start doubting everything you’ve written:
11. When deadlines are coming up and you just can’t deal:
12. When you and all your classmates have hit breaking point and realize you’re slaves to a 25-page paper:
13. When you hand in your draft to your professor and someone asks how you think you’ll do on your thesis:
All in all, senior year is a crazy time and thesis has us all a little frazzled, to say the least, so please take pity on us college seniors when you see us. Here's hoping that crisp final draft will be worth all the insanity at the end of term!
